Abstract
Background
Transcatheter edge-to-edge tricuspid valve repair (TTVR) is a novel treatment option in patients with severe tricuspid regurgitation (TR), right-sided heart failure and prohibitive surgical risk.
Purpose
We investigated whether RVRR can occur early after TTVR in patients with isolated TR and its potential association with clinical outcome.
Method
We measured right ventricular parameters by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) at baseline (BL) in 44 consecutive patients undergoing TTVR for isolated severe TR. We obtained follow-up (FU) TTEs after 1 month.
Results
At BL, we observed dilated RVs with an RV end-diastolic area (RVEDA) of 28.0±8.3cm2, RV mid diameter of 40.7±7.3mm and tricuspid annulus of 47.5±8.1mm. The majority of patients (63%) showed RV systolic dysfunction with either a tricuspid annular plane excursion (TAPSE) <17mm or fractional area change (FAC) <35%. In 40 Patients (90%), a periprocedural TR reduction by at least 1 degree was achieved (p<0.01). During further clinical FU (272±183 days), 21 patients died (of whom 14 had prior hospitalizations for heart failure before death), 8 patients had hospitalizations for heart failure, 1 patient underwent heart transplantation and 1 patient was lost to clinical FU.
We acquired a short-term echocardiographic follow-up (Echo-FU) after 30 days in 36 patients (82%). TR reduction was stable after 1 month with a TR grade ≤2+ in 26 of 36 patients (72%, p<0.01 vs BL). We detected RVRR in the majority of patients with 1-month Echo-FU: RVEDA decreased from 28.8±8.2 to 26.3±7.4cm2 (p<0.01), RV mid diameter from 41.2±7.3 to 38.5±7.7mm (p<0.01) and tricuspid annulus from 48.3±8.3 to 42.8±6.6mm (Figure, p<0.01). We observed a non-significant trend towards reduction of TAPSE (17.5mm to 16.1 mm, p=0.12) and FAC (37.8% to 35.5%, p=0.17), which could represent a normalization of systolic function of a previously hyperactive RV.
Next, we evaluated whether RVRR is potentially associated with clinical outcome. We stratified patients into two groups with more or less than median change in RVEDA, RV mid diameter and TV annulus. Fewer combined clinical events (time to death or repeat intervention or first hospitalization for heart failure) were observed in patients with pronounced decrease of RV mid diameter (p=0.03) and TV annulus (Figure, p=0.02) at FU. A decrease of RVEDA showed a non-significant trend towards better outcome (p=0.06).
Figure 1
Conclusions
Our report demonstrates that RVRR occurs already 1 month after TTVR for isolated TR and is associated with less clinical endpoints.
Tricuspid Valve Repair for a Patient with Congenital Isolated Severe Tricuspid Regurgitation
